


i can sea clearly now

by Anonymous



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Beach Volleyball, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Volleyball Dorks in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24404602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Kageyama stumbles across Hinata and his friends playing beach volleyball, and like the idiots they are, they fight. Although that doesn't stop Kageyama from thinking the dumbass is the cutest boy he's ever seen.A completely self-indulgent AU wherein Kageyama and Hinata don't meet at school but at the beach.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 2
Kudos: 93
Collections: Anonymous Fics





	i can sea clearly now

Kageyama despises the beach – he always has. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the sand is a nightmare. It’s rough and scratchy, and it seems that as soon as he touches it, it sticks to him like a vengeance. He’ll never be able to get rid of it again, eternally finding it in his ear, in his shoes, in his volleyball bag, any crevice the damn sand can get into.

His mother disagrees with him, however, and she calls out to him – already halfway towards the shore – for him to follow her.

“Tobio, come on!”

His mother has the biggest grin on her face and Kageyama is annoyed with the fact he can’t refuse her. She has always managed to find ways to get him to do things he doesn’t want to do. It’s practically a superpower of hers.

He groans and steps onto the sand, lamenting the fact his feet will feel itchy for the rest of the day, and approaches her.

He’s already hating life - the sun’s glaring into his eyes, he feels sweaty, his feet and ankles are covered in sand - when he sees something from the corner of his eyes. Then, Kageyama decides the day might turn out enjoyable after all because there’s a _volleyball net_ and there are about ten players jumping high and powerfully hitting a volleyball into the ground - Kageyama can’t stop the small grin on his face. 

If he can watch volleyball it doesn’t matter if sand gets everywhere, he’ll at least have fun.

He diverts his attention from the net to his mother who has noticed his peak of interest.

“Oh no, Tobio,” she says, “We’re supposed to spend the day together.” Her eyes are disappointed and she’s got a light frown on her face, but Kageyama can’t help but flicker his eyes back to the net where there’s an intense rally going– Kageyama can’t know for sure, he’s too far away to tell, but the players seem pretty good.

He flickers his attention back to his mum and despite the crease between her eyebrows, her face has softened. 

“Sorry mom, I’ll sta–” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“It’s okay, Tobio. You can go watch them. Just make sure to check on me every so often okay?” She gives him cheeky smile then, one that makes her look so young. Kageyama feels a knot of guilt in his stomach– she obviously still wants him to stay, but before he can say another word she shoos him off with a flick of her hands.

“Go, go! Tobio. No need to look at me with that face.”

And so – after quickly slathering sunscreen onto his pale skin and chugging along a towel – he’s off. As he approaches the net, the features of the players become more apparent. They’re all tall with dark hair, except one boy whose hair is an obnoxious bright orange and more noticeably, _tiny._ He’s at least twenty centimetres shorter than the rest of them, but it doesn’t seem to inhibit him much. Kageyama can’t help but gasp when the red head jumps– no, flies as high as his opponents. It’s an insane feat and Kageyama can’t help but be impressed.

Once he’s close enough to distinguish their faces, his rather good first impression of the boy changes as he watches him miscalculate the ball’s angle, and as a consequence, finds it smashed into his face. The boy lets out a loud whine as he stumbles back from the ball’s force, but it doesn’t stop there, the angle of the collision causes the ball to come directly towards Kageyama.

Without hesitation, he catches it with his two hands and leaving the entire team is staring at him. Even the small boy, who is now peeking at him through his hands from the ground.

A voice from one of the tall boy’s capture’s Kageyama’s attention.

“Good catch! Mind handing us over the ball?”

Kageyama tosses it back and is just deciding what to do next when another voice interrupts his thought.

“Oi! What are you looking like that for!”

Kageyama’s brow furrows at the accusatory tone and he realises it’s coming from the very boy who just had his face smashed in. His face is pink from soreness, but he doesn’t seem to have any other injuries. Not that Kageyama cares.

“What are you on about?”

“You’re so broody! What? Did you expect to keep the ball or something?” The boy is standing up now, his hands on his knees.

“No?” Kageyama says, because he doesn’t know how he made that impression. The boy must be stupid. He regrets his previous amazement of him - just because he can jump doesn’t mean he’s smart.

“See! You don’t even know,” immaturely poking his finger out at Kageyama.

“Hinata, stop messing with the guy” another player says, “Just leave him alone.”

“Whatever.” And Hinata throws him the dirtiest look ever.

Kageyama doesn’t know what he did to piss the boy off, but he feels a wave of indignation rise through him as he continues to glare. Who the hell does he think he is? Kageyama did nothing wrong. What an annoying dumbass.

He continues watching the game from afar, plopping himself on the sand beside them, making sure to wear his sunglasses so they can’t tell he’s looking from his eyes.

Nevertheless, the irritating boy – Hinata. He heard his name being called multiple times – continues to send him nasty looks more often than necessary.

While Hinata seems to despise him, Kageyama still can’t help but be in awe of his athleticism. He can jump higher than anyone Kageyama has ever seen before. He has incredible leg power, he’s fast and most importantly – he notes watching him run face first into the sand in a failed attempt to receive a stray ball – he has a ruthless determination to win.

Unfortunately, he also severely lacks all the necessary skills of volleyball. His receives are shoddy, his serves are hopeless and worse of all the boy is an absolute dumbass – he relies purely on instinct and does not use one ounce of intelligence to gauge his opponent’s skills.

Kageyama knows that logically Hinata’s not the worst player – some of his teammates are horrendous – but the boy has a vendetta against him for no reason at all, and Kageyama’s pissed that despite all his natural talent, he still manages to be shit at volleyball. It’s offensive to all those hard-working players who don’t have the same level of pure talent, but still train hours every day. He should be way better.

After watching Hinata serve the ball into the back of his teammate’s head, Kageyama really contemplates just leaving, but something stops him. Despite everything, despite his idiocy and clumsiness, Hinata has something. Something that Kageyama is incredibly envious of. Something besides his amazing fine motor skills, and endurance – He’s a great team player.

Hinata is enthusiastic and encouraging. He smiles brightly and screams at his teammates about how cool they are for making a great play. And Kageyama can tell how much it positively affects the team. They look rejuvenated with each supportive yell and high-five he gives them. And it pisses Kageyama off.

That damn smile combined with his bright orange hair makes Hinata look like a literal ball of sunshine, the type that hurts your eyes after looking for too long, and Kageyama wishes his sunglasses worked better against it. 

He watches them play for about twenty minutes before the itching feeling under his skin urging him to play becomes too much.

He stands up, and once the ball has been slammed to the ground - not wanting to interrupt them mid play - he calls out. “Oi!” The team is staring at him with expectant eyes, except Hinata, who yet again, is glaring at him. “Could I join your game?”

Kageyama is not the most comfortable in social situations and if this were a matter of anything but volleyball, he wouldn’t trying to initiate conversation at all. But he’s at the beach, and sand is irritating, and he might as well enjoy volleyball if he can.

A random boy shrugs and says, “Why not?” at the same time Hinata exclaims, “No!”

Glaring back at him, Kageyama joins anyway.

“Hey, what’s your name?” Hinata asks.

“Kageyama.”

“Let’s see what you got then, Kageyama” Hinata says, with a determined glint in his eyes.

Kageyama smirks, ready to complete destroy him. Hinata won’t know what’s coming to him.

*

After successfully beating Hinata in every play, besides a couple of instances wherein his inhuman reflexes saved the ball, Kageyama feels satisfied.

He swirls to face Hinata, ready to gloat, but is beaten to it. Although not in the way he expects.

“That’s was so amazing!” Kageyama hears from behind him, and turning around, he’s faced with Hinata who wears the brightest look of admiration on his face. He had thought he would be mad, but faced with this, instead, causes the tips of Kageyama feels the tips of his ears burn.

“Where did you learn to do all that!”

Shrugging a shoulder, he says, “I played in high school a lot, so…”

“So did I! But I can’t do _that_!” Hinata’s eyes are sparkling, and Kageyama wishes he would stop, it’s making his chest twist in an uncomfortably familiar way.

“Maybe because you’re a dumbass.”

Kageyama’s words cause a shift in Hinata, his plain awe morphing into a glare again. He yells, akin to a petulant child, “I’m not a dumbass, you are!”

Kageyama allows a little twitch of the lips, “That’s not what you were saying a minute ago.”

“You can be a dumbass _and_ be amazing at volleyball!”

Thinking back to some of the players in Karasuno – Tanaka and Nishinoya coming to mind most predominantly – Kageyama sees truth in that statement. But he doesn’t want to give Hinata the satisfaction of knowing so, so he just frowns at him.

“What is up with you?” Hinata is looking at him with a strange glint in his eyes, like he’s trying to decipher a math problem.

“I don’t know how to answer that.” Kageyama says. “Idiot,” he adds.

Hinata pouts. “You came here out of nowhere, being all broody and start calling me all kinds of names! Who the hell does that?”

Kageyama sees his point. He’s still not sure how he ended up here. But his love for volleyball is too strong, he would do anything for it. So he tells the truth.

“I just like playing volleyball.”

“That doesn’t answer the question!”

“It seems to have slipped your mind that _you_ were the one who provoked me first.” Kageyama says, exasperated.

“That’s not true!” Hinata is waving his arms around frantically now as if that will help him win the argument, “You were glaring at me, was I supposed to do nothing?”

“I wasn’t glaring, that’s just my face!”

At that, Hinata pauses, looks at him in shock, then suddenly bursts out laughing. Kageyama stares at the boy, whose eyes a crinkled shut, tears streaming down his face, and seems to be laughing so hard he can’t breathe.

Kageyama’s not entirely sure why Hinata found what he said so funny but that isn’t important. What’s important is his inner turmoil as he feels like he’s been hit by a truck. He saw the smile from afar but seeing it at such close proximity is causing his stomach to flutter, and his face to grow hot. And it dawns on him why.

It’s horrible to admit but Hinata, as annoying as he is, is _adorable._ And Kageyama tries to keep his face as neutral as possible as waves of embarrassment and annoyance run through him, but it’s hard to stay straight faced when an adorable boy is cracking up right in front of him. Why does Hinata have to be so cute?

Hinata eventually stops, panting lightly from the force of laughter, and looks at him with amusement, “You’re pretty socially awkward, aren’t you?”

“Oi! Shut up!”

But Hinata keeps going, “That would explain why you look so constipated all the time, you don’t know how to make friends and talk to people and–”

Before he realises what he’s doing, Kageyama has Hinata in a headlock and is ruffling his surprisingly soft and fluffy hair to shut him up. Maybe it’s weird because they’re practically strangers, but Hinata is laughing sightly between his complaining, and Kageyama realises they’re having fun despite annoying each other.

Eventually Kageyama stops and despite Hinata’s whining protests, he doesn’t seem that bothered by Kageyama’s actions. Freed from his grip, he just looks at him sulkily, rubbing his head and wincing. “Idiot, why did you do that for?”

“You were insulting me.”

“I wasn’t! I was just explaining how you are as a person!”

Kageyama takes in a deep breath and struggles with all his might not to point out that is, indeed, worse.

Before he can reply, he hears a loud cough from behind him, sounding as if it weren’t the first time it had done so and Kageyama becomes aware of his surroundings again. Realising he had just wrestled and argued not only with a complete stranger but had wrestled that complete stranger in front of all of his friends, Kageyama decides he would like to shove his head in the sand and never come back out.

The team is staring at them with varying degrees of amusement. “Well, that was entertaining’ says someone - whose name Kageyama can’t remember for the life of him - and after a few moments of awkward silence, they start playing again.

They play match after match and before Kageyama knows it the sun is setting, and the team is packing up the net.

He feels awkward. He’s not familiar with what the etiquette is for parting ways with people he just met. A part of him just wants to leave without saying a word but the more logical part knows that’s a bad idea.

His thoughts are cut off by a now unfortunately familiar voice, “Dumbass! Why are you making that face again?”

The words don’t contain the same harshness as they had before and looking down, he sees Hinata with a small smirk on his lips. Kageyama can only imagine he looks ‘constipated’ again.

“I have to go,” gesturing stiffly behind him.

“Uh huh, I thought so,” Hinata says.

Kageyama scans his face for any indication of sadness or disappointment, but for a boy that seems to always be brimming with emotions - never once shutting up and expressing himself wildly - his face is strangely neutral.

And so Kageyama nods and puts out his hand. “It was nice to meet you.”

Hinata shakes back, “Nice to meet you too.”

Kageyama nods again before turning around and walking away, feeling strange. He supposes he should say farewell to the rest of the team, but he finds he doesn’t care much - Hinata was the one he wanted to say goodbye to. He resists the urge to look back.

He meets up with his mother who scolds him for ditching her. So he promises her he’ll make it up to her with a massage and knitting wool, which she agrees to.

Kageyama doesn’t know if he’ll ever see the boy again, and the thought he won’t brings a gnawing feeling to his stomach, disappointment washing through him.

They’re walking back to the car, packed up and ready to go when he years a shout, “Kageyama! Wait!”

He whirls around to see Hinata rushing towards him, a barrel of orange hair and fast limbs, and Kageyama feels his heart pound at the sight. Huffing, Hinata hands out a piece of paper. “This-” he says, panting slightly, “This is my number. Hit me up whenever you want to play volleyball.”

Kageyama eyes the scribbled numbers on the paper in shock. Not knowing what else to do he stammers out, “Okay I will… thank you.”

Hinata grins, seemingly unconcerned about his awkwardness, and Kageyama feels almost blinded at its brightness. “No problem, see ya!” Hinata says. “Text me!” Then he sends him one last smile before sprinting back to his friends, yelling wildly for them to wait for him all the while.

*

Later, Kageyama sends the number a message.

Me:

_Hi_

Unknown number:

 _Hey idiot_ _:D_ _Took you long enough_

*

And that was how Kageyama and Hinata met.

Later, his mother would tease him for blushing so hard, and proceed to ask him how he managed to convince such a cute boy to give him his number. Kageyama would blush even more and ignore her making her laugh harder.

They texted a lot and eventually saw each other again. They played volleyball, and lots of it. As time went on, Hinata started to stick around, impossible to escape from like the damn sand in which they met.

Then they started to find themselves holding hands. Then cuddling. Then kissing. It was all quite the development for Kageyama, surprised by the turn of events.

But looking at Hinata dozing beside him, the boy who filled his life with volleyball and sunshine, Kageyama decided he was pretty damn happy, and he wouldn’t change any of it for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
